KIM Beazley's push to overturn Labor's longstanding policy against expanded uranium mining received a boost yesterday when the party's youth wing, Young Labor, fell in behind the federal leader's plan.
Incoming Young Labor president Sam Crosby said the group's annual conference had been persuaded for environmental and economic reasons to abandon the "three mines" policy that Young Labor had strongly supported for decades.
"We can't figure out when the original policy was introduced," he said.
"The Left controlled Young Labor for a great many years and we (the Right) took it back in 1992. No one's changed the policy since then. It's obviously an issue a lot of people have strong emotions about. But if the single largest threat that we have in our environment today is global warming, this is obviously a direct counter to that.
"And then there's the economic impact. We've got 30 per cent of world uranium reserves, and that means jobs."
Mr Beazley announced in July that he would be seeking to overturn the no-new-mines policy at Labor's national conference in April next year.
Federal MP and Left powerbroker Anthony Albanese said yesterday that Young Labor's switch on uranium policy was "predictable, given the dominance of Young Labor by the machine Right". He said a much better indication of where the party's rank and file stood on the uranium issue would be this week's counting of the votes for federal president.
The two leading candidates for the position are NSW senator John er, an opponent ofexpanded uranium mining, and South Australian Premier Mike Rann, a strong supporter ofchange. Mr Rann has described the current policy as "anachronistic".
But Mr Albanese dismissed the environmental case for nuclear energy.
"If you doubled the use of uranium throughout the world, you'd decrease global greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent and you'd potentially run out of known uranium reserves in coming decades - 30 years is one estimate," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20547327-2702,00.html
Incoming Young Labor president Sam Crosby said the group's annual conference had been persuaded for environmental and economic reasons to abandon the "three mines" policy that Young Labor had strongly supported for decades.
"We can't figure out when the original policy was introduced," he said.
"The Left controlled Young Labor for a great many years and we (the Right) took it back in 1992. No one's changed the policy since then. It's obviously an issue a lot of people have strong emotions about. But if the single largest threat that we have in our environment today is global warming, this is obviously a direct counter to that.
"And then there's the economic impact. We've got 30 per cent of world uranium reserves, and that means jobs."
Mr Beazley announced in July that he would be seeking to overturn the no-new-mines policy at Labor's national conference in April next year.
Federal MP and Left powerbroker Anthony Albanese said yesterday that Young Labor's switch on uranium policy was "predictable, given the dominance of Young Labor by the machine Right". He said a much better indication of where the party's rank and file stood on the uranium issue would be this week's counting of the votes for federal president.
The two leading candidates for the position are NSW senator John er, an opponent ofexpanded uranium mining, and South Australian Premier Mike Rann, a strong supporter ofchange. Mr Rann has described the current policy as "anachronistic".
But Mr Albanese dismissed the environmental case for nuclear energy.
"If you doubled the use of uranium throughout the world, you'd decrease global greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent and you'd potentially run out of known uranium reserves in coming decades - 30 years is one estimate," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20547327-2702,00.html
